Here’s that manga publishing pact we were talking about yesterday, as scooped by PW’s Calvin Reid: Tor Books has signed up Seven Seas to produce a line of 6-8 manga a month:

Science fiction and fantasy publisher Tor Books announced plans to enter the U.S manga market by creating a new manga imprint with Seven Seas Entertainment, an independent publisher of original and licensed manga, manga-inspired prose titles and illustrated juvenile fiction based in Los Angeles. The new venture will release original manga titles, but also plans to compete for top Japanese manga licenses such as the first volume of the Takashi Okzaki’s popular Afro Samurai manga series which it will release in August 2008. The Afro Samurai manga is the basis for the popular Spike TV anime series that premiered in 2007 and features the voices of actors Samuel L. Jackson, Ron Perlman and Kelly Hu.

Lots of connections on this deal which was put together by “Tor publisher Tom Doherty, Macmillan v-p of merchandise and sales Steve Kleckner and Seven Seas founder and president Jason DeAngelis.” Kleckner was ones the sales guy at Tokyopop so he knows manga. Macmillan (which owns Tor)also distributes Hill & Wangs non fiction GN line, and First Second; they also distribute D&Q and NBM’s ya Papercuts line — so this gives them a full range of graphic novel genres, soup to nuts.